Welcome to RE:INVENTION’s Tuesday Toast. Each Tuesday, we toast innovators and roast the “toasted” (troubled companies that forgot business basics or failed to commercialize disruptive ideas).

TOASTING!

A toast to Steve Case, in honor of his birthday. Steve — the co-founder of AOL, chairman of the Startup America Partnership, co-chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation, and co-chair of the Revolution Growth Fund — has been a big proponent of crowdfunding startups. He was inducted into the Junior Achievement Hall of Fame in 2009. One of our favorite Steve Case quotes? “You are only as strong as your team…If you don’t have the right people, no matter how smart you are, no matter how good your idea is, you’re not going to get very far.” Brilliant. Here’s to you, Steve Case. Happy birthday!

TOAST!

Last week, OnLive (a cloud based gaming service) filed an Assignment for Benefit of Creditors. All investors lost their stake in the company. Yesterday the company fired half of its employees. Just three short years ago, the company was considered the future of cloud gaming; a disruptive innovator. A company that Microsoft was rumored to be looking to buy. How did OnLive lose its edge? According to a briefing on Guardian’s Game Blog, OnLive failed to connect with customers in the marketplace. They didn’t know their audience. They didn’t have enough market demand or paying users. And they were spending more than they could afford on servers and data centers. OnLive’s CEO insists the company will live on but we aren’t optimistic. Sniff sniff. We smell burnt toast.

Companies are generally better off when they focus on people and process rather than technology and technique. People (customers and employees) drive company prosperity and innovation.